Channa Gachua Tank Requirements

[Fella]

Looking at maybe getting a pair of Dwarf Snakeheads sometime (not the near future), but was curiousabout the requirements for a breeding pair.

AFAIK -

- They aren't fussy of water requirements

- They can have no tankmates and will eat anything that will fit in their mouths

- They are highly predatory

- They show high amounts of brood care

What I'd like to know is

- The acceptable minimum tank size for a breeding pair

- General food reqs. Would a flake/prawn/bloodworm diet suffice?

- Would an LFS usually be able to take all of the fry?



Any advice gratefully received, especially from people wth previous experience.

 

[Fishy412]

i would say ask your LFs if they can take them all. other than that i'm not sure. i know a channa gachua needs 20 gallons to itself if its not breeding.

 

[Fella]

i would say ask your LFs if they can take them all. other than that i'm not sure. i know a channa gachua needs 20 gallons to itself if its not breeding.

Yeah? I read it was slightly less than that. I also read they make decent community fish on a couple of sites though. Surely that can't be true, unless you have giant community fish.

 

[CFC]

A 20 gallon tank is suitable for an established breeding pair, but you cannot just put two snakeheads into a 20g tank and expect them to get along because they wont and one of them will end up dead. The only way to achieve a breeding pair is to buy a minimum of 6 individuals and house them together in a larger tank until a pair has formed, you'll know when this has happened as the other 4 will be hiding or dead. You will also need another large tank for raising the fry in, an average brood will have over 200 fry. The fry are tiny when they first hatch and need to be raised on liquid foods for the first couple of weeks, you can then progress to crushed flakes and chopped bloodworm until the fry are large enough to manage whole bloodworms, usually when they are about 3/4 long.
Adults are unlikely to accept any flake or pellet foods, prawns, mussels, whitebait and live foods such as earthworms and crickets are preffered.
Selling the fry is very problematic, many shops wont stock snakeheads because of all the false information about them and shops that do usually only take a dozen at a time, i cull 60% of the brood with each spawning because there is no point raising fish i cannot sell.


Single Channa can be ok in communities of larger fish such as Bala sharks, larger gouramies and some catfishes. They should never be mixed with territorial fish like Cichlids or any fish which are similar in shape to the snakehead like gobies as this will lead to aggressive territorial disputes.

If you want to take the drive to the Twickenham area of London i can let you have six 1" Channa gachua for £25, i usually sell them to the shops for £6 each when they are 2" and they put them up to £18, PM me if your interested.

 

[Fella]

Cheers CFC, if circumstances change I'll probably take you up on the offer. My problem is that I'll have a free tank after xmas, but sadly I don't a tank to grow the fry on, so I'll have to give it a miss. They're definitely something I'd want to keep in the future though.